The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed to remove the gray wolf (Canis lupus) from the list of
threatened and endangered species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The proposal comes
not long after the recovery and delisting of the gray wolf in the western Great Lakes states and Northern
Rockies as a result of three decades of successful management actions undertaken by federal, state and
local partners. However, the Service is also proposing to maintain protection and expand recovery efforts
for the Mexican wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) in the Southwest, where it remains endangered. The proposal
includes the Service’s comprehensive review which determined that the current listing for gray wolf,
developed 35 years ago, erroneously included large geographical areas outside the species’ historical
range. In addition, the review found that the current gray wolf listing does not reasonably represent the
range of the only remaining population of wolves in the lower 48 states and Mexico that requires the
protections of the ESA – the Mexican wolf population in the Southwest.

The proposed rule is based on
the best science available and incorporates new information about the gray wolf’s current and historical
distribution in the contiguous United States and Mexico. It focuses the protection on the Mexican wolf,
the only remaining entity that warrants protection under the Act, by designating the Mexican wolf as an
endangered subspecies.